1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of color management, and specifically relates to color management in which a device profile stores both a characterization process and measurement data.
2. Description of the Related Art
Traditional color management systems (CMSs) use characterizations of color imaging devices to derive color transformations that transform color coordinates between a device-dependent color space that depends on the device, and a device-independent color space that does not depend on the device, such as a “profile connection space” (“PCS”). The characterizations are often stored in device profiles, such as those standardized by the International Color Consortium (ICC). Standardized device profiles, however, are inflexible because they must conform to a predefined specification.
More recent CMSs utilize actual device measurements, which are sometimes referred to as “measurement-only profiles” (MOPs), even though this description is not strictly accurate. MOPs are used to drive the color conversion process, rather than relying on device profiles which may be generated by other programs. Although MOPs are advantageous because of their flexibility, their very flexibility leads to further problems. One such disadvantage, for example, is that MOPs must rely on pre-arranged characterization processes which define how measurements are obtained from a device and how they are used to generate a color transform. As such, since flexibility is bound by the pre-arranged characterization process, a traditional CMS may be unable to process a device profile in which color measurements are ordered or categorized in a non-standard manner. Furthermore, it may be difficult to add a new MOP characterization process to an existing CMS which may be pre-programmed with the characterization process of only one or just a few MOPs, requiring that new versions of the CMS be created each time a new type of device or device profile is created.
One method of overcoming this problem is to incorporate the device characterization in a “plug-in” to the CMS. Here, the term “plug-in” means a software module which adds a specific feature or service to the CMS, such as the ability for the CMS to recognize a new device profile. Using plug-ins, existing CMSs can be upgraded to handle new devices or device profiles, by executing newer device characterizations as they become available. With plug-ins, however, the plug-able characterization process components must be available to the CMS via a shared network, disk, or the Internet. Moreover, since the CMS that needs the plug-in might be running in any number of different and incompatible computer platforms, the plug-in must be published in multiple different platform-dependent formats so that one format can be selected consistent with the computer platform on which the CMS is operating.